1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a lesion identification system for surgical operation for identifying a marker indicative of a location of a lesion of an organism.
2. Related Art
In modern surgical operations, various attempts have heretofore been undertaken to provide techniques known in the art to assist operations using a marker, placed prior to executing the operations and indicative of a location of a lesion in an internal site of a patient, as a field mark. As for these techniques, various techniques have been proposed in the related art.
For instance, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2794162 discloses an operation marker. The operation marker is comprised of a marker needle that has one end to which a lead wire is fixedly fastened. With such a structure, as the marker needle is indwelt in a lesion inside the patient prior to the execution of surgeries when executing, for instance, a lung surgery with the use of thoracoscope and a lever surgery with the use of a laparoscope, the marker needle is left with the lead wire exposed in the internal part. For this reason, the surgery can be executed using the lead wire as a marker.
However, since there is a probability for the surgery marker to be inserted to the lesion by penetrating through a normal site on a transcutaneous fashion, lesion cells scatter, resulting in dissemination to occur.
Further, Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 3-78 discloses a tube with a magnet for an organism. The tube, adapted for insertion to the organism, has a distal end to which a magnet is fastened, and magnetic fluxes resulting from the magnet are detected at an outside of the organism. Then, it becomes possible to detect a location of the distal end of the tube indwelt in the organism for non-invading ability.
However, when executing endoscopic treatment to the organism, the tube with the magnet for the organism is hard to take a proper response to an observation image of an endoscope even if the location of the magnet is detected.
When treating the lesion inside a digestive tract such as, for instance, a stomach, a rigidscope is probable to be used to execute an endoscopic treatment. One example of a technique for treating the lesion in such a case is described below. A soft endoscope is introduced to an inside of a stomach through a mouth and, for instance, a light is dimmed. When this takes place, using an illumination light from a light source of the endoscope allows a location of a lesion to be confirmed. Then, a laparoscope is inserted to a position suitable of the patient for treating an identified lesion, upon which the lesion is treated.
However, in such a case, a need arises for a flexiblescope, unnecessary for surgical operation per se, to be prepared only for the confirmation of the location of the lesion (operation site) and, in addition, it is required to keep an operator who has an ability to manipulate the flexiblescope. Furthermore, after the operations have been completed, there is a need for rinsing, disinfecting and clearing off the endoscope used for confirming the location of the operation site. For this reason, using the endoscope just for the positional confirmation to be executed during surgical treatment is disadvantageous because of an increase in labor hours, such as preparation and clearing off of the instrument, cumbersome and complicated techniques, keeping of the operator and increased costs.
As proposals for further improving the technique of utilizing the illumination light of the endoscope, a luminous marking clip has been known from Japanese Utility Model Registration Publication No. 3027808. The marking clip incorporates a light emitter and is attached to an inner wall of an organ such as a digestive tract. This allows an operator to look at a gleaming clip at an outside of the organ for the confirmation of a location of a lesion. However, this clip is used for visual observation and it is sometime hard to view the light emitted from the clip, providing a difficulty in usage. This light gleams to the extent as if the illumination of the endoscope is substituted to the light emitter associated with the clip.
Another technique has been known. That is, when executing treatment on a lesion inside, for instance, a large intestine on a laparoscopic fashion, a clip is preliminarily fixed to a surrounding of the lesion using a flexiblescope. When treating the lesion using a rigidscope, for instance, an X-ray is irradiated to the large intestine using an X-ray fluoroscope to obtain an X-ray transparent image. Thus, a location of the clip around the lesion is confirmed and, then, the lesion is surgically treated and extirpated.
However, in such a case, since the X-ray fluoroscope is used for confirming the location of the lesion, issues arise for the patient to be exposed to radioactivity. Also, the X-ray transparent image is completely different from the observation image obtained by the laparoscope, resulting in a difficulty in identifying the location of the lesion in relationship between the X-ray transparent image and the observation image from the laparoscope and confirming the relevant location concurrent with the treatment.
Furthermore, like the technology using the clip set forth above, in cases where the treatment is executed on the lesion inside the large intestine on a laparoscopic fashion, an ultrasonic device is used to apply an ultrasonic wave to a lesion for obtaining an ultrasonic image in the vicinity of the lesion under the use of a laparoscope. That is, the lesion is treated upon confirming the location of the clip around the lesion through the use of the ultrasonic image.
However, even in such a case, the ultrasonic image is completely different from the observation image from the laparoscope and it is hard to identify the location of the lesion in relationship between the ultrasonic image and the observation image of the endoscope.
In addition, like the two technologies using the clip set forth above, in cases where the treatment is executed on the lesion inside the large intestine on a laparoscopic fashion, tattooing pigment is preliminarily injected to a surrounding of the lesion using the flexiblescope in place of the clip described above. Then, since the pigment seeps to a serosa of a large intestine, the location of the lesion is confirmed using the laparoscope for treatment on the identified lesion.
However, with such a technique, if a tattooing process needs to be contrived as described below depending on a site or if a certain amount of time has elapsed after the application of tattooing pigment, probabilities take place with the scattering of tattooing pigment and the resultant difficulty in discriminating the lesion.
Additionally, another inconvenience takes place in the presence of attempts made to confirm the location of the lesion based on the technique of using the ultrasonic image set forth above or the technique of injecting tattooing pigment. For example, there is a probability wherein a lesion is present in a region on a dorsal side opposite to a region in which using a rigidscope allows an abdominal cavity to be observed. Under such a situation, since the technique of using the ultrasonic image undergoes a difficulty in transmitting an ultrasonic wave through the lesion in the presence of an air layer in an internal part of a tube of the large intestine, it becomes hard to obtain the ultrasonic image for identifying the lesion. Moreover, with the technique of injecting tattooing pigment, even when tattooing pigment is injected to the surrounding of the lesion, no tattooing pigment seep to a wall portion of the large intestine at an site in opposition to the lesion, resulting in a difficulty of identifying the lesion using the rigidscope.